The embodiments described herein relate generally to CT imaging systems, and more particularly, to detector assemblies for CT imaging systems.
In some computed tomography (CT) imaging systems, an x-ray source projects a fan-shaped beam which is collimated to lie within an X-Y plane of a Cartesian coordinate system and generally referred to as an “imaging plane”. The x-ray beam passes through an object being imaged. The beam, after being attenuated by the object, impinges upon an array of radiation detectors. The intensity of the attenuated radiation beam received at the detector array is dependent upon the attenuation of the x-ray beam by the object. Each detector element of the array produces a separate electrical signal that is a measurement of the beam intensity at each detector location. The intensity measurements from all the detectors are acquired separately to produce a transmission profile and reconstruct an image of the object.
Detector assemblies for at least some known CT imaging systems include an array of tightly packed pixels in a scintillator and a corresponding array of diodes. The area of the pixel array typically matches the area of the diode array, which may require manufacturing custom silicon diodes to match the dimensions of the pixels. Accordingly, using diodes that are matched to the dimensions of the pixels may be relatively expensive.